


Cupid At The Library

by echomoon



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, neitherlandslibrary, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13554507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echomoon/pseuds/echomoon
Summary: A series of prompt fills for the neitherlandslibrary february cupid at the library challenge. All prompts will be Penny/Kady and the chapter is the named after the prompt.





	1. First Time (in the Neitherlands)

"So this is the Neitherlands." Kady says once they reorient from leaving the Earth fountain. Penny can't help but smile at how unimpressed she is.

"What, you want me to hunt down some natives for you to fight? Pretty fountains aren't enough for you?" 

"I mean..." She looks at him and they both laugh. She hooks her arm into his. "C'mon, show me the Library. I can't wait to beat the shit out of those fuckers for making you sign that contract."

"And then I can show you all the battle magic books." Penny replies fondly as they walk to the entrance.

"Mmm, you sure know how to woo a woman." She kisses him, and jumps down the chute with vigour. 

Penny chuckles as he follows her down. The Order has no idea what's coming for them.


	2. Hurt/Comfort & Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whats up, this is two prompts in one because originally i was going to skip h/c but i realized this section is sort of that?  
> So right now I'm working on a Penny/Quentin/Kady/Julia fic thats soulmates based, and while the soulmarks aren't between Penny and Kady its still like, a major part of the section that follows.  
> So here's a teaser for my upcoming fic that also managed to fill the Neitherlands prompts!

Sex with Kady is enough of a pleasant distraction that he almost forgets about what just happened - or at least until shortly after they finish, Kady rests her arm across his waist and asks if he’s okay.

“Why wouldn’t I be.” He replies, giving her a satisfied grin.

She laughs, but moves her hand on top of his, where he’s been absentmindedly rubbing his hip. “You keep touching your mark.”

He gives a short hum as a reply, turns away to look at the wall. “I have a lot of tattoos, Kady.”

“Alright,” she sighs, and even though he can’t read her mind he can tell she’s hurt. “I get it. Subject change.”

“No, its -” Penny says, immediately frustrated by his inability to talk about things. Normally? Not a problem. But with Kady… he wanted, for some probably stupid reason, to be close to her. And since he would be stuck at Brakebills for the next few years anyway, giving in to the impulse he would normally ignore was… a difficult thing to do, but one he was going to risk. “Someone said my words.”

“Oh, fuck. Who?” Kady says, sitting up. The sheet slides off her naked body but she doesn’t move to fix it.

Penny shakes his head. “He doesn't want it. The marks. A soul mate. Any of it.”

“He said that?”

“No. I - okay.” Penny sits up as well. “I - hear voices.”

“Okay, like, psychic?”

“God, I hate that word.”

“Then mindslut.” She kisses his cheek. “Penny, babe, you aren’t the first I’ve met. You aren’t even the first to get in my pants.”

He rolls his eyes, smiles a little at her. “He was so fucking, panicked, when I said his words. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I don’t think he even realized he spoke to me tonight, he fucking passed out right after it happened.”

Penny doesn’t really understand why he’s so upset about it. His whole life had basically been constant rejection - this wasn’t anything new.

“And you’re sure he said your words? It’s not a fluke?” Kady says, rubbing his arm.

“They’re pretty fucking specific.” Penny finally moves his hand away from the chicken scratch on his hip. She examines it.

“Huh. Well that just fucking sucks. You want me to beat him up?”

And from anyone else Penny would just be annoyed, but he knows that she’s genuinely trying to be comforting.

“Yeah, that would be helpful.” He replies, just to rile her up.

“Hey, I know battle magic.” She says seriously. “And Krav Maga. Pick your poison.”

He shakes his head, smiles at her, and she drops the serious.

“Besides,” she says, lightly smacking his chest. “I just fucked your brains out, isn’t that help enough?”

“I don’t think it worked well enough, we might have to try again.” he says, and moves to push her back down onto the bed. She gives in easily to his kiss.


	3. Body Swap

A month into Brakebills South, after Mayakovsky finally lifted the silencing spells from them and started putting them in groups to work on exercises that were somehow equally as frustrating as the first ones, the fucker decides to up his game and put everyone through another ordeal.

"This," he says as pebbles float through the air to each student, "will tell you who your partner is. Go find match. go."  
Everyone somberly shuffles around comparing rocks, and quickly find they are placed in the same pairs they were in the trials. at first, when Mayakovsky assigned them exercises, there was an air of curiosity to the students, but at this point the most anyone could muster up was resignment.

Penny and Kady don't even look at each other once they realize they're paired.

"Finished?" Mayakovsky says, looking around the now still room with disinterest. "Good, repeat after me."

He says a phrase in Hindi, and everyone dutifully repeats. A series of bright flashes fill the room, and the next thing anyone knows, they're on the floor.

Penny reaches to wipe the spots out of his eyes and stills. When he sits up, long hair brushes in front of his face, blocking his sight. And strangest of all, his head is quiet. Not even the slightest whisper.

"What the fuck." he hears himself say, only he wasn't the one talking. He turns towards the noise to face himself.

Mayakovsky had switched their bodies. Fuck.

Everyone stands up, the room chaos as everyone realizes what Mayakovsky has done. Some people are yelling, moving towards him. Some are just freaking out. Penny is pretty sure that’s Alice over in the corner hyperventilating - or, Quentin in Alice’s body. Kady and Penny just move away from each other once they stand - but as soon as they’re more than a yard apart, Kady disappears.

“Hm.” Mayakovsky says, ignoring all the students yelling at him. “You are traveler?”

Penny nods numbly. Few others in the room seem to have noticed what just happened, most focused on their new bodies or on being angry. Mayakovsky gestures for him to follow, and as they head towards the man’s office he begins to process being in Kady’s body.

His center of gravity is different, making him stumble as he adjusts. The muscle memory of her body helps, better than it would be if he had shapeshifter into her rather than mentally switching. The strangest thing is her magic.  
He never really thought about the way his magic felt. It had just always been there. What he had focused on was the voices in his head. Being without them was weird; the physical world seemed so much louder. And Kady’s magic was… strong. He could feel it, somehow, buzzing through him, angry and wild.

In the office, Mayakovsky starts to do… something. A spell, most likely, given his muttering and mashing of ingredients, including hair freshly plucked from Kady’s body, but in all honesty Penny just isn’t paying attention. He’s too busy reveling in the quietness of his head, and focusing on Kady’s magic, trying to calm it down. No wonder she spent so much time meditating. The mind is his, but everything else is hers, and apparently her body’s default is just to be tense and angry; his own stress probably isn’t helping.

Then suddenly Penny’s body blinks into the room, landing on top of a chair, letting out a pained gasp as it tumbles to the ground. Penny stares at his body - at Kady. Mayakovsky just grunts, waits for her to clumsily stand up. He hands them both a cuff, attached together by a short chain. They look at him until he scoffs.

“Put on! Idiot children.”

“Why.” Kady says.

Mayakovsky rolls his eyes. “If you leave each other’s radius, you -“ and here he points to Kady, “end up in, volcano. Or middle of ocean.”

“Why not just switch us back?” Penny asks.

“The spell is on timer. You change back in, eh, a week.”

“A week?!” Kady exclaims.

“You want us chained together for a fucking week.” Penny says flatly, leaning forward, stopping short of banging a fist on the table - this body is so reactive.

“What is problem? You can share darkest secrets but not be near each other? Suck it up.”

“Shared secrets are kind of the problem here.” Kady mutters, crossing her arms.

“...I am not caring. Wear the chain or not. This is your problem now. Leave.” And with that, Mayakovsky leaves the office.

Penny and Kady stare at each other - stare at themselves. Kady is the first to break. She puts the cuff on.

“What.” She says. “I was in the middle of some fucking desert. I don’t want to end up somewhere worse.”

Penny is still furious with her, but he understands the pain. However reluctantly, he softens a bit and puts the other cuff on.

When they rejoin the others, everyone is working on the first of the same set of Poppers they had all spent the last month on.

No one is happy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> catch me @echomoon  
> honestly i cant remember if kadys been to the neitherlands before but fuck it, in the canon of this she hasnt


End file.
